The Wench

She pulled down the neckline of her dress an inch more and studied herself in the mirror in her small room. Her long wavy honey-blonde hair was up to show of her long neck, and a few strands of hair graced it, giving her the sweet innocent look that most of the women working here envied. Her brown eyes, which were normally so full of life, were now empty and dead, after months and months of misery. They were lined with kohl, and her mouth was red and looked like a big bleeding gap in her face. Her dress was crimson red and had definitely seen better days, being one size too small, old and tattered.

"Lizzie, come on, it's time to go" Leah called, and Elizabeth sighed before she walked down to Leah. It was still relatively early in the evening, and it was now sailors and pirates started to come in, looking for a drink and some company. As Elizabeth and Leah stepped into the Wench, the most popular tavern in Tortuga, they saw that both Giselle and Scarlet was already working, picking up men. Though on the inside Elizabeth was crying and screaming, she put on a seductive smile and walked around slowly, while looking for a suitable customer. She refused to have old men as costumers, and Leah never stopped nagging about it, saying it was there the biggest money was. Elizabeth's brown eyes came to rest on a man standing over at the bar, his back against her. He looked to be in his early to mid-twenties, he was dressed like a sailor and had quite long, curly dark hair that was tied together at the base of his neck with a piece of cloth. She walked up to him, and traced her hand along his shoulders.

"Hey handsome, you want some company?" he turned around and Elizabeth gasped. "Will?"

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"You never told be what your purpose to Tortuga was, boy" The captain asked, but Will didn't look up from the handkerchief he was caressing gently.

"My purpose is to find a thing off value to me, which has gone missing" The captain was satisfied with that answer, and went back to his cabin, leaving Will out on deck, lost in his thoughts. He had to look in Tortuga; it was the only place left he could think of where she could be. He had looked in the entire Caribbean; he had even gone so far as to locate Jack to ask him if he had seen her, which he hadn't. After Elizabeth's father had died in the hands of Lord Beckett, she had been distant, and had shied away from Will. When he had come to her house one day, the butler had said that she had left, and he didn't know where to or why. So Will took a chance on Tortuga. Even if she wasn't here, the chance that someone had seen her was big.

Will looked up when the captain announced that they were in Tortuga, and carefully put down the silk handkerchief in his pocket, the handkerchief that had belonged to her, and that had been his only memory of her these months. He stepped of the ship and looked around at the chaos that was Tortuga. As he walked into the Wench he looked around, but there was no sign of Elizabeth. He went up to the bar, and started to ask around if anyone had seen her, with no luck. Suddenly a hand touched his shoulder, and a voice that was too familiar for his liking spoke.

"Hey handsome, you want some company?" He turned around, and his worst nightmare came true. There she was, Elizabeth, his best friend, his love, and his fiancée. She looked terrible, like she had spent the last months without food and sleep. She had dark circles under her eyes, which wasn't caused by the lines of kohl, and her normally slender form looked like it could break in half anytime. Her eyes looked empty and blank, but still she gasped and looked surprised when she saw him. "Will?"

"Elizabeth?" Elizabeth felt light headed, and grabbed the massive tree pole that held up the upper level to steady herself, so that she wouldn't faint and fall to the floor. To see Will, here, after all these months, stirred up emotions that she had repressed ever since she started working.

Her first night of working had been a nightmare, she had still been a virgin, and knew absolutely nothing about men or the way men thought about women and sex. Leah had taken her under her wings, and protected her from violent customers, and helped her in ways of technique, everything to make more money, too get food on the table. Leah knew nothing about Elizabeth's previous life, and she didn't snoop around to find out.

"What are you doing here?" she managed to press out, and Will looked her over from, head to toe, and then looked into her eyes, and she felt like crying.

"I came here looking for you, like I have been doing for these past months." Elizabeth felt guilty for not leaving any note, or sign where she was going, but hid that feeling with anger.

"So? I didn't ask you to come and look for me. Why did you?" h

He walked up closer to her, and she could smell the unique smell that was Will. Her Will. The man she had watched grow up from when he was only a child, to the strong and handsome man he was today. The man she loved. "Because if my memory doesn't fail me, you're still my fiancée, and I want to know why you left." Then he looked down on his shoes, and she almost missed the next thing that came out of his mouth. "Was it because of me?"

"No it wasn't because of you, it was because…" She was interrupted by a man coming up to her, draping an arm across her shoulder with a bottle of rum in his hand.

"You look like you could use a drink luv" He said drunkenly, and then passed out, falling down on the floor.

"I can't talk about this now, not here" She rushed past Will, and went outside, where the chaos wasn't anything less than inside the Wench, but that was just Tortuga, never a quiet moment. She didn't realize that Will had followed her until she felt his grip on her upper arm. When she turned around he let go and looked at her, and she knew that this was gonna be a, on her part, teary conversation.

"Why did you leave? I need to know"

Elizabeth swallowed the lump in her throat, and looked up at Will, who looked at her with love in his eyes. "Because I had nothing there for me! My father was dead, all the money was gone, and I just wanted to get away" The look in Will's eyes changed, and she could see anger, hurt and betrayal.

"You had me!" He exclaimed, and took a step forwards, towards her. "You had me" He repeated in a lower tone, almost whispering, and she could feel that a tear started to make it's way out of her eye and down her cheek. In all the years Will had known her, he had once seen her cry once. On her father's funeral. She had almost started to cry when they were both arrested by Beckett on their wedding day, but no tears had leaked out of her big brown eyes. "How can you say that there was nothing there for you, when I was there? I love you Elizabeth, and I don't understand why you left. Whatever was troubling you, you should have been able to talk with me about it. If you make your choices alone, how can I trust you?"

"You can't" She whispered, and he nearly missed out on hearing it. "You can't trust me, because I can't trust me. I ran away because it got tough, and I couldn't solve the problems myself. And I'm weak. Instead of staying, and trying to solve it with you, I ran away. Because I was scared." The combination of not having eaten anything for a day, the surprise of seeing Will, and the tightly wrapped corset she was wearing finally got the best out of her, and she passed out. Will caught her before she hit the ground, and pulled her close to him. She looked so thin and fragile, not at all like the woman he had fallen in love with. He picked her up, holding her to him like a child, and was just about to walk down to the docks, when a voice interrupted him.

"Oi, what do you think you're doing? Let her go or I'll kill you"

He turned around and came eye to eye with a woman, a prostitute by the looks of her. Her eyes shot daggers and she placed her hands on her hips. "Who are you?"

"I'm the bloody queen of England, who are you?"

"I'm Elizabeth's fiancé" Leah looked doubtfully at him, and remembered something that Lizzie had told her a couple of months ago, about a long lost love.

"Oh Leah, he's so handsome. He has quite long unruly dark hair which he always ties back because it gets in his face all the time. And his eyes, oh his eyes, they're dark, and when he looks at you, his eyes goes right through you"

This was the man that stood in front of her, the one Lizzie had described so vividly with love and longing in her voice. Leah knew why Elizabeth had passed out; her corset was wrapped tighter than usual, and they had not had any dinner last night nor tonight.

"Come on, I'll take you to our home" Leah said, and Will followed her, still holding his unconscious fiancée in his arms. Leah stopped outside a small house that looked more like a woodshed than a house, and took out a key from under a plant that stood outside the door. She unlocked it, and opened the door, but without going in.

"Her room is up the stairs, the first room to the left. I have to work; I'll be back in a few hours." And then she left the young man and his fiancée alone. Will walked inside and with a bit effort, closed the door behind them. He looked around, and came to the conclusion that the house was very small. The ground floor consisted of a small kitchen, a small sitting room with what looked like a small dinning room table and two chairs. He walked up the stairs and opened the door the Elizabeth's room. He put her down on the bed and looked around. The room was almost claustrophobically small, with only room for a bed, a small bedside table, a bureau and a mirror that hung on the wall.

He looked over at Elizabeth, who was still unconscious, and stroked her cheek gently. He then came to think about that maybe the corset was preventing her from breathing normally, so he decided to take it off. He proceeded to pull her dress of, which has a challenge if he didn't want to break it more. When it was off he tried not to look at her body too much, but still he couldn't help himself. She looked so beautiful, so perfect in his eyes. He arranged her so that she lay more comfortably, and the started to unlace the corset in the front, his hand shaking slightly. When it was off, he took up the handkerchief and cleaned of the make-up from her face.

This was not what he expected to find when he came to Tortuga. At most, he had expected to find someone who had seen her, or knew where she was. Not this. Not finding his fiancée, his love and his best friend in Tortuga, working as a wench, a whore.

As he had cleaned off her make-up, he looked up in her face, but she was still unconscious. He traced his fingers gently across her cheek, and placed a tender kiss on his forehead.

"I love you," he whispered, and then crawled down in bed next to her.

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Elizabeth woke up with a strange feeling that she wasn't alone, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself staring at Will's sleeping form. She reached out and stroke her hand gently across his cheek. He stirred, and then woke up, looking right into her eyes. She then became conscious about the fact that they were both lying in her bed, and she crawled out quickly. Will stood up too, and they stood on either side of the bed, looking at each other.

"Elizabeth, look at me" Will pleaded, a look of uncertainty and confusion in his eyes. Elizabeth looked up, into her fiancé's eyes, and suddenly felt calm, like she knew that everything would be okay.

"I'm sorry" Elizabeth whispered with a broken voice, a tear falling down her face and disappearing into the fabric of her chemise.

"For what?" Will asked, and started to walk around the bed, and Elizabeth followed him with her eyes the whole time.

"For everything I've done, for everything I have put you through. God, what you must think of me," she bent down her head and Will, who were now standing in front of her, lifted it back up.

"I don't" They both became aware of how close they were standing, and Elizabeth lifted her head further, and closed her eyes, searching for his mouth with hers.

Will closed his eyes as Elizabeth's lips met his gently, and he tenderly drove his hand through her hair. The kiss made Elizabeth light-headed, and she felt how the entire world melted away. Nothing and no one existed, only her and Will. For Will, this kiss was a promise of something new, something real, something greater than what they once had. They pulled apart and leaned their foreheads against each others.

"I love you. God help me, I love you" Elizabeth said, and Will looked at her.

"I love you too"

Elizabeth pulled back from him, earning a strange look from him. "I want to try again. Leave everything that has happened behind and start over."

"I want to start over again too. I think that we can make it" Will said and Elizabeth looked at him with seriousness in her eyes.

"Are you willing to forget everything that has happened, everything that I have done?" This was it. This was the moment of truth. Would Will accept her now? After what she had done, the woman she had turned in to? Will took a step forwards and nodded.

"Yes" Elizabeth leaned up to him, and encircled her arms around his neck. "Yes" He whispered before their lips met in a kiss, so much and so alike from the last one. This one was filled with passion, need and a promise of love. They pulled apart from the kiss but stayed in each others embrace.

"Forever this time" Elizabeth said and Will smiled.

"Forever"

THE END